The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 21, 1904, Page 2

Wateh for the real liter- ary sensation of the year— I'o - Morrow’s Tangle’— B Geraldine Bonner, hich will begin in the xt Sunday Call. It is story of the great virgin woman who cd one of its pioneers the plains i him-—who gave him another woman—who f vy survived to do reat things with the glit- West—of a o erossed 1 wealth that Cali- fe showered upon them. This is the last of the “Two Don’t miss novel that installment Vanrevels.” thrilling follows it. the Tanberry ng the m ssed her the gly ng fin that Mr. con- that ed up- louded ex- You kn fort her when I he ng.. She's in there wit 1 he sneered “What's the ng?" she went on n’t spoken to her kir [ Do you st You weren't a the poor chi 1 be a good father sor ght begin by asking g laughter to me. s she done fore I went away she r t f and behaved there like & treet hoyden. The ladies of have not formerly riety of that kind.” Mrs. Tanberry. xt morning, when I taxed she dutifully defied and in- 2 not the agine delicacy with ed’ her. What has that ur devilish tantrums of Robert Carewe?” bliged to you for the expres- . returned “When I came X t afternoon, I found her read- He pointed to many all fragm of Mr. Cu spaper, which were scat- lawn near the veranda. here, reading an article ad read downtown and which in a special edition of that et, sent out two hours ago.” noon, e ‘ t She was o u know what that article was, made do vou know- what it was Although breathing heavily, Mr.’ Ca- e had compelled himself to a der- ain outward calmness, but now, in the llable agitation of his anger, ng to his feet and struck one of oden villars of the porch a king blow with the bare knuckles of enched hand. “Do you know t was? It was a eulogy of that Vanrevel! It pretended to be nt of the enrollment of his in- fernal compamn: but it was nothing more than a glorification of that nigger- loving hound! His company—a lot of sneaks, who'll run like sheep from the first Greaser—elected him captain yes- terday, and to-day he received an ap- po ent as major! It dries the biood k of it—that black ! am I never to Cummings wrote ybber- a major! G hear the last it, the fool, the lying ing fool: he Neither he nor his paper ever enter my rs again! And I took the dirty sheet from her hands and tore it to pleces—" “Yes, terposed Mrs. Tanber: if you had done it with dc And stamped it into the ground!" I heard you! she & and gave arewe came close to her, her a long look from such bitter e th her own fell before them. *If vou've been treacherous Yo Jane said, “* then God punish ey've met—my daughter and vhile I was away, it is on 1 don’t ask you. because I anything you'd lie I tell you that as she did not hear n the walk nor know that I until I Jeaned over her And 1 swear that I suspect tur to the door, the anberry ed to the chair 1 the house, he pat r. Vanrevel has met my daugh- he said e, stretch- in a thick voi t both hands in a strange, men- ture toward the town that lay a ng in the growing dusk, “ if he has addressed one w much as allowed his e: overlong, let him take care of himself!" “Oh, Robert, Robert,” Mrs. Tanberry cried, in a frightened whisper to her- self, “all the fun and brightness went out of the werld when you came home!" For in truth, the gayety and light- heartedness which, during the great lady’s too brief reign, had seemed a vi- tal adjunct of the house, to make the place resound with music and laughte; were now departed. No more did Mrs. Tanberry extemporize Dan Tuckers. mazourkas, or quadrilles i{n the bali- room, nor blind-man’s buff in the li- brary; no more did serenaders nightly seek the garden with instrumental plunkings and vocal gifts of harmony. Even the green bronze boy of the foun- tain seemed to share the timidity of the other youths of the town where Mr. Carewe was concerned, for the goblet he held aloft no longer sent a lively stream leaping into the sunshine in translucent gambols, but dribbled and dripped upon him like a morbid au- tumn rain. The depreesion of the place was like 2 drape of mourning purple; but not that house alone lay glum, and there were other reasons than the re- turn of Robert Carewe why Rouen had lost the joy and mirth that belonged to it. Nay, the merry town had changed beyond all credence; it was hushed like a sick-room, and dolefully murmurous with forebodings of farewell and sor- TOW, For all the very flowers of Rouen's youth had promised to follow Tom Vanrevel on the long and arduous journey to Mexico, to march burning miles under the tropical sunm, to face d to her, or so to rest on her THE strange fevers and the guns of Santa Anna. Few were the houses of the more pre- tenticus sort that did not mourn, in prospect, the golng of son, or brother, or close friend; mothers, already wept not in secret, fathers talked with husky bravado; and every one was kind to those who were to go, speaking to them gently and bringing them little foolish presents. Nor could the hearts of girls now longer mask as blocks of ice to the prospective conquistadores; Eu- gene Madrillon's young brother, Jean, after a two years' Beatrice and Bene- dict wooing of Trixie Chenoweth (that notable spitfire) announced his engage- ment upon the day after his enlisement, and recounted to all who would listen how his termagant fell upon his neck in tears when she heard. the news. ‘And now she cries about me all the time,” finighed the frank Jean blithely. But there was little spirit for the old merriments; there were no more car- pet dances at the Bareaud's, no mas- querades at the Madrillons’, no picnics in the woods mnor excursions on the river; and no more did light feet bear light hearts through the *“mazes of the intricate schottische,” as Will Cum- minge remarked in the Journal. Fan- chon, Virginia, and five or gix others, spent their afternoons mournfully, and vet proudly, sewing and cutting large pleces - of colored silk, fashioning a great flag for their sweethearts and brothers to bear southward and plant where stood the palace of the Monte- zumas. That was sad work for Fanchon, though it was not for her brother's sake that she wept, sinceé, as every one knew, Jefferson was already so full of malaria and quinine that the fevers of the South and Mexico must find him in- vulnerable, and even his mother be- lieved he would only thrive and grow hearty on his soldiering. But about Crailey, Fanchon had a presentiment more vivid than any born of the natural fears for his safety; it cagne to her again and again, reappearing in her dreams; she shivered and started often as she worked on the flag, then bent her fair head low over the gay sHke, while the others glanced at her sym- pathetically. She had come to feel quite sure that Crailey was to be shot. “But I've dreamed it—dreamed it six times!” she cried, when he laughed at her and tried to cheer her. *“And it comes to me in the day time as though I saw it with my eyes; the pictufe of you in an officer’s uniform, lying on the fresh, green grass, and a red stain just below the throat.” “That shows what dreams are made of, dear lady,” he smiled. “We'll find little green grass in Mexico, and I'm only a corporal; so where's the officer’s uniform?” ’ Then Fanchon wept the more, and put her arms about him, while it seemed to her that she must cling to him so forever and thus withhold him from fulfilling her vision, and that the gentle pressure of her arms must some- how preserve him to life and to her. “Ah, you can’t go, darling,” ghe sobbed, ‘while he petted her and tried to soothe her. “You can’t leave me! You belong to me! They can't, can't, can't taxe you away from me!" And when the flag was completed, save for sewing the stars upon the blue ground, she took it away from the others and insisted upon finishing the work herself. To her own room she carried it, and each of the white stars that the young men of Rouen were to follow In the struggle that would add 80 many others to the constellation was Jeweled with her tears and kissed by her lips as it took its place with its brothers. Never were neater stitches daken, for, with every atom of her body yearning to receive the shot that was destined for Crailey, this quiet sewing was all that she could do! She would have followed him, to hold a parasol over him under the dangerous sun, to cook his meals properly, to watch over him with medicines and blankets and a fan; she would have followed barefoot and bareheaded, and yet, her heart breaking with the crucial yearning to mother him and protect him, this was all that she could do for him, this small stitching at the fiag he had promised to follow, When the work was quite finished, she went all over it again with double thread, not facing the superstition of her motive, which was to safeguard her lover; the bullet that was destined for Crailey might, in the myriad chances, strike the flag first and be deflected, though never so slightly, by one of these last stitches, and Crailey’s heart thus missed by the same margin. It was at this juncture, when the weeping of women was plentiful, when old men pulled long faces, and the very urchins of the street observed peridds of gravity and even silence, that a notion entered the head of Mrs. Tan- berry—young Janie Tanberry—to the effect that such things were all wrong. She declared energetically that this was no decent fashion of farewell; that af- ter the soldiers went away there would be time enough to enact the girls they left behind them; and that, until then, the town should be made enlivening. So she went about preaching a revival of cheerfulness, waving her jeweled hand merrily from the Carewe carriage to the volunteers she saw upon the street, calling out to them with laugh- ter and inspiring quip; everywhere scolding the mourners viciously in her husky voice, and leaving so much of heartening vivacity in her wake that noue coulq fail to be convinced that she ‘Was a wise woman. $ . Nor was her vigor spent In vain. ‘It was decided that a ball should be given to-the volunteers of Rouen two nights before their departure for the State SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL fl’fi'fl rendezvous, and it should be made the noblest festival in Rouen's history; the subscribers tock their oath to it. They rented the dining-room at the Rouen Huuse, covered the floor with smooth cloth, and hung the walls solidly with banners and roses, for June had come: More, they ren a red carpet across the sidewalk (which was perfectly dry and clean) almost to the other side of the street; they imported two extra fiddles and a clarionet to enlarge the orches- tra; and they commanded a supper such as a hungry man beholds in a dream. Miss Betty laid out her prettiest dress that evening, and Mrs. Tanberry came in and worshiped it as it rested, like foam of lavender and white and gray, upon the bed, beside the snowy gloves with their tiny, stiff lace gaunt- lets, while two small white sandal- slippers, with jeweled buckles where the straps crossed egch other, were be- i fastened upen Miss Betty’s silken t by the vain and gloating Mamle. “It's a wicked cruelty, Princess!” ex- claimed Mrs. Tanberry. “We want to cheer the poor fellows and help them to be gay, and here do you deliberately plan to make them sick at the thought of leaving the place that holds you! Or have you discovered that there's one poor vagabond of the band getting off without having his heart broken, and made up your mind to do it for him to- night?” “Is father to go with us?’ asked Betty. It was through Mrs. Tanberry that she now derived all mformation concerning Mr. Carewe, he had not directly addressed her since the after- noon when he discovered her reading the Journal's extra. “No, we are to meet him there. He seems rather pleasanter than usual this evening,” remarked Mrs. Tanberry, hopefully, as she retired. “Den we mus’ git ready to share big trouble to-morrer!” commented the kneeling Mamie, with a giggle. Alas! poor adoring servitor, she re- cefved & share unto herself that very evening, for her young mistress, usu- ally as amiable as a fair summer sky, fidgeted, grumbled, found nothing well done, and was never two minutes in the same mind. After donning the se- lected dress, she declared it a fright, tried two others, abused each roundly, dismissed her almost weeping hand- fe ECOGNIZED, 7% ‘;?’oz?fi' OS77 maiden abruptly, and again put on the first. Sitting down to the mirror, she spent a full hour over the arrangement of her hair, looking attentively at her image, sometimes with the beginning of doubtful approval, often angrily, and, now and then, beseechingly, im- ploring it to be lovely. When Mrs. Tanberry came in to. tell her that Nelson was at the block with the carriage, Miss Betty did not turn, and the elder lady stopped on the thres- hold and gave a quick, asthmatic gasp of delight. For the pleture she saw was, without a doubt in the world, what she proclaimed it, a moment later, ravishingly pretty; the girlish little pink and white room with all its dainty settings for a background, lit by the dozen candles in their sconces and half as many slender silver candle-sticks, and, seated before the twinkling mir- ror, the beautiful Miss Carewe, in her gown of lace and flounces that were crisp, yet soft, her rope of pearls, her white sandals, and all the glory of her youth. She had wound a wreath of white roses into her hair, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes warm and glowing, yet inserutable in their long gaze into the mirror. “Oh,” sald Mrs. Tanberry, “you make me long to be a man! I'd pick you up and run to the north pole, where no one could ever follow. And I can tell you that it hurts not to throw my arms round you and ki bu; but you're so exquisite I don’t want to touch you!" In answer, Miss Betty ran to her and kissed her rapturously on both cheeks. “Am I—after all?” she cried. “Am I? Is it? Will the roses do?” And without heeding her companion's staccatoes of approval she went rapidly to the open bureau, snatched up a double handful of ribbons and furbelows, and dashed out of the room in search of the dis- graced Mamie. She found her seated on the kitchen door steps in lonely lamentation, and showered the gifts into her lap, while the vain one shrieked inimitably with pride in the sudden vision ¢f her mistress and joy eof the incredible possessions. “Here, and here, and here,” said Miss Betty in a breath, hurling the fineries upon her. “I'm an evil-tongued shrew, Mamie, and these aren’t to make up for the pain I gave you. but just to show that I'd like to if T knew how! Good-by!"” And she was off like an April breeze, “Dance wid _the han'somdest,” screamed Mamie, pursuing uproariously to see the last of'her as she jumped into the carriage, “bow to de wittriest, an’ kiss de one you love bes’!"” “That will be you!" said Miss Betty to Mrs. Tanberry, and kissed the good lady again. CHAPTER XVL “THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS.” It is a matter not of notoriety but of the happlest celebrity that Mrs. Tan- berry danced that night; and not only that she danced, but that she waltzed. To the lot of Toppingham Marsh (whom she pronounced the most wheed- ling vagabond, next to Crailey Gray, of her acquaintance) it fell to persuade her; and, after walking a quadrille with the elder Chenoweth, she waltzed with Tappingham. More extraordinary te relate. she danced down both her part- ner and she music. Thereupon did Mr. Bareaud, stung with envy, dare emu- lation and essay a schottische with Miss Trixle Chenoweth performing marvelously well for many delectable turns before he unfortunately fell down. It was a night when a sculp- “dezvous. BY BITH TARLINGTON. tured god would have danced on his pedestal; Jume, but mnot over-warm, balm in ther air and rose leaves the breeze; and even Minerva's g might have marked the. time chestra kept. Be sure they again to “Those Endearing Charms."” “Oh, the heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the ver turns on her god when e sets ok that she gave when he Young close Three of the volunteers were ent in their reg who had been elect drillon, the lieute: confined to the officers dered their uniforms at privates and non-commissioned officers were to receive theirs at the State ren- However, althc h this gala adornment was limited th gentlemen mentionad, t ppearance added “an indescribable £ splendor and pathos to the occas to quote Mr. Cummings once A fourth citizen of the town who might have seized upon this epportunity to display himself as-a soldier neglected to take advantage of it, and stole in quletly, toward the last, in his ordinary attire, leaving the major’s uniform folded on a chair in his own room. The flag was to be presented to the volunteers at the close of the evening, and Tom came for that—so he clalmed his accusing soul. He entered unobserved and made his the or to way, keeping close to the wall, to where Mrs. Bareaud sat, taking a chair at her side; but Robert Carewe, glancing thither by chance, saw him, and changed countenance for an Instant Mr. Carewe composed his features swiftly, excused hi f with elaborate courtesy from Miss Chenoweth, with whom he was t g, and crossed the room to a corner near his enemy. Presently, as the music ceased, the vol- unteers were bidden to me forward, whereupon Tom left Mrs. Bareaud and began to work his way down the room. Groups were forming and breaking up in the general movement of the crowd, and the diss ing of one brought him face o face with Elizabeth Carewe, who was moving slowly in the opposite direction, a small flock of suitors in her train. The confrontation came so suddenly and so unexpecte re either was aware, the each other’s eyes, full and straight, both stopped instantly as though fixed, Miss Betty leaving a sen S forever half mplete. There was a al sound from the vel; but no one n and then Tom gy for bio sed on. y began to talk again , With a vivaeity tc ated to be genuine, high color went from her che left her pale. Nothing could ha raged her more with herseilf t consciousness, now sudde: within her, that the encounter perceptible effect upon her. What p er had this man to make her man strained d mechaniedl? What had his eyes always to stir her as they did? It was not he for wi she had spent an hour over her hair; not he for whom she had driven her,poor hand- maiden away in tears; that was for one who had not come, one great in heart and goodness, one of a pure and sacrificlal life who deserved all she could give, and for whose sake she had honored herself in trying to look as pretty as she sould. He had not come; and that hurt her a little, but she feit his generosity, belleving that his motive was to spare her, since she could not speak to him in Mr. Carewe’s presence without open and public rupture with her father. Well, she was almost ready for that, seeing how little of a father hers was! Ah! that other should have come, If only to stand betwean her and this tall hypocrite whose dark glance had such strength to disturb her. ‘What lles that gaze contained, all in the one flash—the strange pretense of com- prehending her gently but completsly; a sad compassion, too, and with it & look of farewell, seeming to say: “Once more I have come for this—and just, ‘Good-by!'” For she knew that he was going with the others, going perhaps forever, only the day after to-merrow— then she would see him no more and be free of him. Let the day after to-mor- row come soon! Miss Betty hated her- self for understanding the adieu, and hated herself more because she could not be sure that, In the startled mo- ment of meeting before she collected herself, she had let it go unanswered. She had done more than that; with- out knowing it she had bent her head to his bow, and Mr. Carewe had seen both the salutation and the look. The young men were gathered near the orchestra, and, to the hilarious strains of “Yankee Dgodle,” the flag they were to receive by the sisters and sweethearts who had made it, all of whom were there, except Fanchon Ba- reand. Crailey had persuaded her to surrender the flag for the sake of spending this evening—next to his last in Rouen—at home alone with him. The elder Chenoweth made the speech of presentation, that is, he made part of it before he broke down, for his son stood in the ranks of the devoted band Until ‘this incident occurred, all had gone trippingly, for every one had tried to put the day after to-morrow from his mind. Perhaps there might not have been so many tears even if the young men had not stocd t gether so smilingly to receive thefr g it was seeing them so gay and con dent, so strong in their youth and so unselfish of purpose; it was this, and the feeling that all of them must suffer and some of them die before they came back. So that when Mr. Chenoweth choking in his loftiest flight, came to a full stop. and without disguise buried his face in his handkerchief, Mrs. Tan- berry, the apostle of gayety, openly sobbed. Chenoweth, without more ado, carried the flag over to Tappingham Marsh, whom Vanrevel directed to re- ceive it, and Tappingham t donors without many words thére were not then mary at his com- mand. Miss Carewe had been c! 1 to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” and she stepped out a little from the crowd to face the young man, as the orchestra sounded the first chord. She sang in a full, clear voice, but when the volun- teers saw that, as she sang, the tears were streaming down her cheeks in spite of the brave veice, they began to